These days more and more people are becoming aware of the strain that excessive waste puts on our natural resources. One of the easiest ways for an individual or a company to contribute to the reduction of that waste is by recycling. Newspapers and spent papers from the office can be recycled to produce grocery bags and cardboard boxes, among other things. This not only reduces the need for wood pulp to make the paper, but it reduces the load on our landfills. Newspaper is one of the largest components of waste in landfills today, and it decomposes so slowly that it is likely to remain a large contributor for many years to come.
While recycling sounds like a simple idea, it comes with a few irritations that result in less recycling by offices and households than might otherwise be the case. Take, for instance, the case of curbside pickup for recycling. This is surely a best case scenario since the recycler need only put the papers out to be collected once a week. Plastic bins to contain the papers are usually provided free of charge by the collection company. Unfortunately, these bins have their problems. Being of a fixed size, the bins place an absolute limit on the amount of paper that can be collected at one time. Since most users will wait until the bin is full, the bin is nearly always too heavy to be conveniently handled, by the householder or the collector, by the time it is placed on the curb. Then, again, there must be some use to which they are most perfectly suited, since the bins tend to disappear with appalling frequency, leaving the recycler and the collectors at a loss.
Even when collecting bins are used, some collectors require that recyclers put their papers in paper bags or tie them in stacks with twine or something similar. Putting recyclable paper, especially white office paper, into lower quality paper bags before recycling reflects a committee decision. Either the high quality paper is recycled along with the lower quality bag into a lower quality than necessary product, or the bags must be separated after collection and before recycling. The twine option may involve less sorting at the recyclery, although this is by no means clear, but it certainly involves more work on the part of the recycler. Most householders simply do not know how to tie an unruly stack of newspapers into a neat bundle that is robust enough to stay together after being thrown into a collection truck.